Suimono

A clear soup where the dashi is the dish and everything else is arranged, not simmered.

Fish, Shellfish. Not vegetarian — contains fish, kamaboko, which is a fish cake, shellfish.

Ingredients

• 800 ml dashi
• 2 teaspoons light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sake
• 0.75 teaspoon salt
• 4 prawns
• 4 slices kamaboko
• 100 g enoki mushrooms
• 4 sprigs mitsuba
• 4 slivers yuzu zest

Method

1. THE DASHI IS THE DISH. There is nowhere to hide here -- no miso, no fat, no noodles. If the stock is poor the soup is poor, and the only honest advice is to make the dashi as on its own page, the same day, and taste it before going further.
2. LIGHT SOY SAUCE, NOT DARK, and only two teaspoons. Usukuchi is saltier and paler; dark soy would colour the broth and the clarity is half the point.
3. SALT CARRIES MOST OF THE SEASONING, not soy. That is backwards from almost every other savoury page here, and it is how the broth stays nearly colourless.
4. EVERYTHING IS COOKED SEPARATELY AND ARRANGED. The prawns poached in a little dashi, the enoki blanched, the mitsuba dipped in boiling water for two seconds. Simmered in the soup they cloud it.
5. Warm the dashi with the sake, salt and soy to just below a simmer. NEVER BOIL IT -- boiling dulls the aroma that is the entire reason for a clear soup.
6. Taste it on its own and adjust. It should taste complete before anything is in the bowl.
7. Arrange the solids in the bowl first, deliberately: prawn at the centre, kamaboko beside it, enoki behind, mitsuba laid over.
8. Pour the broth in gently down the side so nothing moves.
9. A sliver of yuzu zest floated on top at the last second. Its oil hits as the lid comes off and is meant to be smelled before it is tasted.
10. Serve covered if you have lidded bowls, and open at the table.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes